An East Bay Youth Bicycle Program
Cycles of Change works to improve the health and sustainability of our neighborhoods by increasing the use of bicycles as transportation, connecting youth with the extraordinary living systems of our local area, and building a diverse community of visionary young leaders. The organization began in 1998 at Roosevelt Middle School in East Oakland and has grown steadily to sites in Oakland, Alameda, and Berkeley. Cycles’ programs are as follows:
- Beginners Urban Riding: Teaches the basics of safe urban riding to small groups of new students and community members, while connecting them with their local environment.
- Community Bike Shops: Makes healthy and reliable transportation accessible to all through their earn-a-bike programs, tools and advice for people fixing their bikes, repair classes, and safe riding instruction.
- Safe Routes to School: Educates elementary school students in safe riding techniques, so that they can build the skills and confidence to bike safely to school.
- Advanced field trips program: Connects youth and community members to places of ecological, historical, and cultural significance, expanding the dimensions of their world.
- Urban Sustainability Program: We developed a six-week course for science classes called “Watershed Guides”
By taking part in Cycles’ programs, youth and adults gain strong and lasting connections to the living world and the larger community. These connections become a foundation for reshaping the relationships between people and land to make our urban neighborhoods healthy and sustainable.
Cycles of Change – Winners of the 2009 Bay Area Heroes award and Oaklandish Innovators of Oakland award
Bay Area Heroes 2009: Cycles of Change »
2009 Oaklandish Innovators of Oakland
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Youth mechanic training
Roosevelt Middle School:
One afternoon a week, participants have the opportunity to gain hands-on mechanical skills training by restoring donated bicycles. Guided by expert staff and more experienced helpers, students work through a step-by-step curriculum that takes them through the basic process of correctly rebuilding a bicycle.
Upon completion, students must then assist a less experienced youth in learning each of those tasks. At this point, the student can choose a donated bicycle to fix up and keep, putting their skills into practice while earning their own sustainable transportation (and free helmet).
Every mechanic day becomes vibrant with activity, with staff teaching basic skills to small groups of beginners, older students helping younger ones, community members bringing in broken bicycles and assisting youth, and hard-working regulars taking on challenging projects and tuning up bikes they earned.
This is a drop in program offered to the general public at no charge, and over the past five years over 800 youth have participated (an average attendance of 30 per week), learning valuable skills, gaining self-confidence, and putting teamwork into practice while converting over 600 discarded bicycles into community resources.
Cycles of Change works to improve the health and sustainability of our neighborhoods by increasing the use of bicycles as transportation, connecting youth with the extraordinary living systems of our local area, and building a diverse community of visionary young leaders. The organization began in 1998 at Roosevelt Middle School in East Oakland and has grown steadily to sites in Oakland, Alameda, and Berkeley. Cycles’ programs are as follows:
- Beginners Urban Riding: Teaches the basics of safe urban riding to small groups of new students and community members, while connecting them with their local environment.
- Community Bike Shops: Makes healthy and reliable transportation accessible to all through their earn-a-bike programs, tools and advice for people fixing their bikes, repair classes, and safe riding instruction.
- Safe Routes to School: Educates elementary school students in safe riding techniques, so that they can build the skills and confidence to bike safely to school.
- Advanced field trips program: Connects youth and community members to places of ecological, historical, and cultural significance, expanding the dimensions of their world.
- Urban Sustainability Program: We developed a six-week course for science classes called “Watershed Guides”
By taking part in Cycles’ programs, youth and adults gain strong and lasting connections to the living world and the larger community. These connections become a foundation for reshaping the relationships between people and land to make our urban neighborhoods healthy and sustainable.